There’s hardly any software developer that hasn’t heard about GitHub. The Microsoft owned platform is a repository hosting service for Git and has a web-based graphical interface that appeals to software developers globally.

If you’re in the software development industry and haven’t used GitHub, then you might want to seriously consider giving it a shot. The GitHub service includes access control alongside several other collaboration features such as a basic task management tool for managing all your projects. Also, with GitHub, you can host all your source code projects in whatever programming language of your choice and keep track of all changes made to every iteration.

Asides from the “version control” features GitHub offers developers, there is a community of like-minded software developers to leverage on. These individuals continually contribute to the community by reviewing, improving, and launching new ideas from code uploaded to the platform. To become a world-class software engineer, GitHub is certainly one platform you want to be active on.

There are many reasons you should be on GitHub as a programmer and here are some of the advantages of being on the platform.

1. Ability to collaborate and contribute easily on your open-source projects

There’s hardly any open-source project out there that isn’t managed on GitHub. The platform is free for developers to upload open-source projects and includes a wiki and issue tracker that makes it quite easy to add more detailed documentation—and get adequate feedback on your project.

Contributing to a project is as easy as just forking it, making your changes and sending a pull request using GitHub’s web interface.

2. Acquiring documentation

GitHub is a library of documentation and as a user, you gain excess to excellent documentations on any project or programming language of your choice.

There’s a help section and guide with articles for nearly any git-related topic you can possibly think of.

3. Create an online portfolio

In today’s competitive talent market, your ability to stand out from other people with similar skills is crucial in acquiring great job opportunities. With GitHub, you’re able to easily showcase your work to technical recruiters.

Most of the biggest technology companies in the world when recruiting for a new project, hunt for talent on GitHub. So, if you have an impressive profile on there, you have a much higher chance of being hired even if your educational background isn’t as impressive.

4.  Using the markdown feature

The markdown feature in GitHub is very useful to every programmer. It allows you to use a simple text editor to create formatted documents. Everything—from user comments to issue tracker—goes through markdown on GitHub.

With the plethora of programming languages you might need to learn when setting up for new projects, having this feature is great because you can create properly formatted content without learning a new system.

5. Access to a simple, yet advanced code repository

GitHub is a repository that acts as a host for your work and can be viewed by the public. It is also one of the largest programming communities in the world currently and gives huge exposure to all your uploaded projects.

6. Track all the changes in your code

Typically, when you have multiple people collaborating on a project, it becomes difficult to effectively keep track of all the changes made. Knowing who changed what, when and where those files are stored can be extremely challenging without a platform like GitHub.

Just like collaborating on a Google Sheet or Microsoft Word document, GitHub has a version history feature that allows you to view and track the previous version of a code at every iteration.

7. Numerous integration options

GitHub allows you to integrate with some common cloud platforms and services like Amazon, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and Code Climate. That way you have more control and additional features to take advantage of on your project.

GitHub is highly recommended if you have an exciting project you’re working on and need to gain better visibility over every development stage.